


Getting Busy

by TheMouthKing



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Established, First Time, Frotting, Hand Job, M/M, Practice Kissing, Semi Public Sex, bc you get this bs, bros camping trip, cape fear, don't let me make titles after midnight, oh my god they were roommates, prequel to Amber, sex while camping is fucking in tents, there was one sleeping bag, tumblr anon prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:11:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMouthKing/pseuds/TheMouthKing
Summary: I put out a call for prompts on the theme of "Inbox me a location (and 1st time or established) where randl have gotten busy and I’ll tell you how it went." This is their new home.Any chapter that ends up having a tie in to other stories will be linked directly from that chapter, in either notes or summary. I'll keep a running "table of contents" right here.Chapter 1:Camping trip/sharing a sleeping bag. First time.Chapter 2:Stairwell of their dorm. Established.Chapter 3:Cape Fear river. First time.





	1. Two Bros Chilling in a Sleeping Bag Real Close Together (bc they're gay or at least bi)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annabelle_leigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabelle_leigh/gifts).



> **Prompt: Two of them alone on a bros camping trip. First time. Bonus points if they end up having to share a sleeping bag.**

Rhett’s lying awake listening to the storm roll in, echoing through the hills as it gets closer. It’s been raining for hours by the time Link finally wakes up, his sleeping bag soaked through. The timing of Link’s first cussing complaint suggests it wasn’t the wet bed that woke him, but the crack of thunder overhead. 

“You okay?” Rhett asks to the darkness.

“Yeah, no-- my bag’s all wet, I think I’m layin’ in a puddle. The hell, man? You think this is funny!?”

Rhett’s laughing from two feet away, from the side of the tent that’s still dry. He thinks this is the funniest goddamn thing he’s witnessed in his life. 

“I freaking told you.”

“What?!”

“I told you the ground was uneven, man! I said we should put it away from the trees where it’s flat.”

“Oh, screw off.” Link’s clumsy swear only serving to get Rhett laughing harder. Through the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder, there’s the sound of Link fighting to unzip his sleeping bag. “Where’s the flashlight? Stop laughing! Like you think this ain’t gonna affect you, but I gotta sleep somewhere and you’re the only one what’s still dry, Chuckles.”

Link’s comment cuts his laughter like a knife. Rhett turns to look in Link’s direction, but the night is dark as pitch. It’s like opening your eyes underground. “I dunno, man, you had it last.”

There’s a soft, plasticy _click-click_ followed by more darkness and a frustrated huff, and then the flashlight bounces off the wall of the tent and hits the ground. Rhett doesn’t have to ask to know the flashlight’s dead, and where a few seconds ago he would have needled Link over it or found it setting off another fit of laughter, the looming threat (or promise) of Link needing to share his sleeping bag because his is wet sobers him. 

Silence descends on the tent and Rhett lays there listening, fruitlessly straining to see, desperate to know what Link is doing but afraid to speak up and ask. 

“We could go back to the car…” Link suggests before too long, his voice coming from high enough that Rhett figures out he’s standing up. 

“How? It’s pitch black and the flashlight is dead, and the car’s a half mile down the trail at least… and it’s pouring rain. Just… c’mon and lie down over here, my bag’s bone dry,” Rhett says, already starting to unzip. Too eager. And why the hell had he had to say “bone”? 

“Is it okay?” Link’s voice sounds so unsure, and Rhett wonders if he’d suggested walking back just to give Rhett an out. So he wasn’t just inviting himself into his bed without offering him a choice in the matter. 

“Yeah, man, of course it is…” Rhett’s unzipping his bag more, shifting to the back of it to make room for Link. He can’t imagine a way they can lay where they won’t be on top of each other. He’s thanking his lucky stars it’s a chilly night, or else the easy answer would be to unzip and lay it open flat and remove the need to touch.

“I gotta find dry pants… my clothes are wet, too,” Link complains miserably, and starts to move around the small tent to find his backpack and fishes around inside for new underwear and a t-shirt. Fresh, dry sleep shorts there is not -- they’d packed light, and he had one pair and that was the now wet pair he was wearing. He declines to mention that fact after he manages to struggle his way out of his wet clothes and into dry, only able to open himself to just so much vulnerability at once. Rhett will figure it out soon enough. Maybe, hopefully, he won’t say anything about it and they can just ignore it and sleep. As if that’s even a remote possibility. 

Rhett listens while he changes, hears the wet plop of his discarded clothes as they hit the floor of the tent. If he could see in the dark he could watch him peel the wet clothes off his body, see his damp skin exposed as he strips down. He’s thinking about earlier when they’d changed before getting into their bags, regrets not looking when Link was changing with the flashlight on and propped in his boot. It’s not like he hadn’t seen him change dozens of times before today, not like they hadn’t wrestled in boxers in college or skinny dipped in the Cape Fear, but he’s always hungry for one more chance to sneak a glimpse of bare skin. It’s worse when they’re in close quarters. It hasn’t been this bad since college, when they shared that small, cramped dorm room. In the tent, he can’t stop his mind from wondering _what if._

The tent floor crinkles under Link’s feet as he moves towards Rhett, and briefly the small room is illuminated when lightning flashes around them. 

“Don’t step on me,” Rhett warns, reaching out to find where Link is in proximity to him, his hand brushing his ankle in the dark. 

“I’m not trying to… okay, there you are,” Link’s more talking to himself than he is to Rhett. How on earth is he even going to get into the sleeping bag? There’s no graceful way he could do this with a light on, but in the dark? “How’re we gonna do this?” 

“Just lay down,” Rhett says, and immediately follows it with directions, “I’m right here, zip side is facing you so just… y’know, lay down in front of me and pull the top of the bag back over you like a blanket. I don’t think we’re gonna be able to zip it back up.”

“No way dude, I’m not bein’ spooned by you.”

“What the _fuck_ , dude, why not?”

“Just ‘cause I’m shorter--”

“--what does that have to--”

“--doesn’t mean I’m automatically the little spoon, I can be the big goddamn spoon, you can’t just assume--”

“--oh for _fuck’s_ sake _,_ ” Rhett flaps the sleeping bag back irritably and moves to sit up. “Fine, I’ll be in front, just get in the freaking sleeping bag or I _will_ walk to the car, in the rain, just shut the hell up about spoons!”

Link hesitates for a second like he might be about to ask Rhett if he’s really okay with this, but thinking better about how that might come across he stays quiet and just gets into the sleeping bag without any more fuss. 

Yeah, right. It goes about as smoothly as passing a kidney stone. 

Link’s all elbows and thumbs under the best of circumstances. In the pitch darkness, he’s so much worse, and they don’t manage to get settled in the sleeping bag without elbowing each other (mostly on accident) a few times and without ending up real awkwardly rubbing up on each other. Once they manage it, once they’re in, the both of them try and get reasonably comfortable and stay like that, motionless, trying to minimize the awkwardness of the situation. But that’s just not in the cards. 

For one, Link’s freezing. It’s a chilly night, but between Link always being cold and having woken up wet, it’s a bad combination and he’s shivering and trying hard not to acknowledge it. He’s also trying just as hard not to acknowledge the fact that Rhett’s body is pressed back against him. He can try and ignore it pretty well as long as neither of them are moving, and for a while, they don’t. Link would almost think Rhett was asleep except he can feel the tension in his body. Like he’s doing that ‘stiff as a board’ thing he does when they share a hotel bed, but on his side and wrapped up tight with him in one shared sleeping bag. 

Link doesn’t know what to do with his arms. One of them is awkwardly curled up under his head, under a corner of the pillow they’re sharing, but the other one’s at his side. There’s no way he can sleep like this, but as time stretches on, making a move to change that feels impossible. He decides to grab a fist full of the hem of his own shirt to help keep his hands away from Rhett, to stop himself from accidentally touching him more than he already is. From giving himself away. 

Slowly, Link starts to warm up. Being behind was the best choice he could have made, his back cradled in sleeping bag and the taller man at his front putting off heat like a radiator. He’s not comfortable by a long shot, but he is tired, and he’s just starting to think he might be able to sleep when everything changes when Rhett shifts. 

But he doesn’t just shift, he rubs back against him. Rubs his ass back against Link’s crotch, the move slow. Obvious. Or is it? Maybe he was just trying to get comfortable. Link’s mind is racing with alternatives, of which there are few. Around them, the storm rages on, rain beating down on their tent. There are no bullfrogs croaking down by the lake, no crickets in the grass, no distant owls or coyotes calling to the night. Everyone’s hunkered down safe from the storm, all sound drowned by the incessant rush of it. Anything could happen in a night like tonight and it’d be swallowed up, covered over by the blanket of rain and thunder.

Rhett moves again, as if Link hadn’t noticed it the first time. This time he steals into Link’s space, his ass pressed so directly into Link’s crotch that there’s no mistaking his meaning, and no mistaking Link’s response. The heat of Link’s shuddering breath raises the fine hairs on the back of Rhett’s neck, and the pulse of interest between them is obvious with so little fabric separating their skin. Link is still clammy from his bag despite changing clothes, from the damp air and now from the heat they’re generating in the shared bag. When his arm, which had previously been held tight down at his side like paper doll, dares to move up around Rhett, his fingertips catch on clothes and skin. He goes slow, waits for an indication this is okay, as if Rhett’s ass pressed flush against his dick wasn’t obvious enough.

In the dark, it feels possible to let go of the fears that have stayed their hands in the past. The hesitations that have kept anything like this from happening when they’ve shared beds before. It feels like the heavy dark of their windowless dorm and the possibilities that darkness had held, if only they’d been bold enough. They’re bold enough now. 

This is a slow daring, and it’s one taken in turns. Link’s shy hands snake over Rhett’s thighs, his belly, and Rhett shifts his hips again like he’s checking to be sure that what he thought he felt was there, the solid shape of the Link’s cock pressed at his ass. They move together, their hands searching in the dark for each other in a way they couldn’t normally. 

The pull between them builds like the storm outside, slowly and with waves of tension breaking like the unrelenting rain. They grow bolder with each passing second, moving like call and response, like counting the seconds between lightning and thunder until it comes so close together the sky lights up the sound. Until the storm that’s been brewing between them is directly overhead and there’s nothing left to do but give in and let it take them over. 

Link holds on tight, hand balled up in Rhett’s shirt and gives in, _moves_. His hips grind into Rhett’s, working his erection against that bony, nearly non-existent ass. They move together, slowly at first but increasingly desperate and inelegant, a tangle of too many limbs in too tight a space. Rhett wants so much more than this but he’ll take what he can get, his mind filling in the blanks, imagining Link’s fist around his cock instead of clinging to his shirt, long cock inside him rather than just rubbing between his cheeks through their clothes. Link nuzzles the back of Rhett’s neck, starting to forget himself, nose and mouth dragging over his skin, the ghost of a kiss. Rhett holds his breath, waiting for it but it never comes. Instead, Link’s chin locks over his shoulder like he’s trying to climb him, get control. With a lurching shift, they move together, Rhett face down on the edge of his pillow, half on half off his sleeping bag, one leg against the cold plastic of the tent floor. Link follows fast, the whole front of him pressed against the full back of Rhett, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think Link was trying for the dead move. 

Something stock-stupid takes Link over because those exact words leave his grinning mouth, voice high and near-laughter with the triumph and wild emotion of the moment, “I’m dead.” 

Those words break the silence between them, tell Rhett that whatever this is is okay, isn’t so fragile it’ll break if he opens his mouth. If he tries to take more than this.

“Link. _Please_ ,” is all he manages, big hand wrapping around Link’s slim wrist and pushing it in the direction he needs it, down while he shifts, plants his knees against the floor of the tent and lifts his hips, backs his ass against Link’s cock. Link takes the hint, the throaty desperation of Rhett’s voice pulling him back from that high giddy edge, and shoves his hand down into Rhett’s underwear, wrapping his fist around his thick cock. Everything about this is awkward and Link can’t begin to imagine how he’ll get the room to stroke him properly, but somehow they make it happen, desperate enough they try to bend the rules of physics, though they’ll pay for it later with sore limbs and bruised knees. 

Rhett comes first, makes a mess of the sleeping bag while Link strokes him through it. He’s clawing at the pillow and the floor of the tent, overwhelmed by Link everywhere around him, breathing down his neck. In the dark it feels like Link towers over him, dwarfs him, and he’s upset he’s come because he doesn’t want this to end. 

Link comes against his ass and Rhett can feel the wet warmth seep through the back of his boxer briefs as he grinds out the last few seconds. When it’s over, he goes slack against his back, “dead” for real this time. 

Rhett breaks the silence first. 

“Hey man… my bag’s all wet. I think I’m laying in a puddle.”

Link just laughs.


	2. The Stairwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt: Stairwell in one of the buildings on their college campus. Established.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a collection of short responses to writing prompts all around the theme of getting busy.

Usually they can make it back to their room before things get out of hand, but tonight they barely make it halfway up the stairs. It’s impossible to know who started it. Link thinks Rhett had with how he’d been looking at him all night, that wild intensity in his eyes leaving no question about what he wanted, but Rhett blames Link for how touchy he’d been. How he made an excuse to touch Rhett at every turn, their fingers brushing every time he’d passed him a beer, legs pressed together every time he sank down beside him, not caring that they were out with friends, not caring who might see.

“What if somebody comes?” Link asks, hushed and breathless. 

“...I think that’s the general idea,” the smirk is audible in Rhett’s voice. 

“You know what I mean,” Link gives him a well-deserved shove for that line, but it’s not a sincere one. He doesn’t want him going anywhere, and his fingers curl up in Rhett’s hoodie to make sure he doesn’t. “What if someone sees?” 

“Didn’t seem like that bothered you too much earlier...” 

On the landing in the stairwell, being seen isn’t as much of a worry as being heard. Sound carries in here, echoes off the metal and brick. As it shifts from just kissing, when their hands start searching each other like they hadn’t already learned the way, there’s a very real possibility they’ll be overheard. Link is loud in particular, in large part due to the fact that Rhett was right about earlier, and he’s right about now -- the risk of being seen, of being heard doesn’t bother Link as much as it _gets him_ bothered.

“Hush up, you’re gonna get us in trouble,” Rhett growls just loud enough for the two of them as he claps a big hand over Link’s loud mouth, fingers gripping his jaw tight. Rhett knows all that does is muffle the noise, because the move and the words just serve to stoke the fire in Link’s belly. The risk of being found out scares Rhett for real, the threat of what people would say or do if they saw them like this. But seeing how the exhibitionist edge of this turns Link on turns him on by proxy. Rhett likes giving Link what he wants, likes discovering new ways of getting him riled up. He’s discovering that he gets off on getting Link off, and there’s a part of him that’s afraid to find out just how far he’d go in pursuit of that.


	3. Practice Sessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The summer they're both eighteen, Rhett and Link's "practice sessions" start to get out of hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a couple of similar prompts...
> 
> **The banks of the Cape Fear River, first time**  
>  **first time by the capefear river**  
>  **Cape fear river <3**  
>  **Answering your prompt: first time was at the cape fear river. 🖤**
> 
> ...and decided to use it as a kick in the butt to do a prequel to [Amber.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14846984)

They’d been “practicing” for a long time before anything more than kissing happened between them, the summer they were both eighteen.

One or both of them had been trying to steer the conversation towards the girls they were interested in. Rhett had just broken up with a girl and Link was angling on asking her out, and they were comparing notes. Link had questions. How had kissing been with her? Had she said anything about Rhett’s technique? 

Truth be told, he’s less concerned with learning for her than using any criticism as a way back into practicing. Since Rhett had been going out with her, they hadn’t practiced once. Those three months had been longer than Link admitted to himself, but there was a level where he was very much aware of it. He knew full well what it was he wanted, but it was just easier if he kept it all buried so deep that even he didn’t know the truth of the matter. 

“The kissing was good, I think… It’s just,” Rhett starts and then goes quiet. 

“Just what?”

“Just, well, I never knew what to do with my hands.” Rhett turns his head and looks over at Link, all stretched out on a towel they’re sharing, spread over a sandy patch of the river bank. 

Link’s got his t-shirt balled up under his neck like a pillow and he’s looking up at the clouds drifting through the clear blue sky above them. He can feel Rhett’s eyes on him and he wants to turn and look, wants to drink in the exact expression on his best friend’s long face, but he’s willing himself not to fold like that, not to give in like he’s got more interest in this than he ought to. 

“You don’t just put ‘em on her?” Link asks like he knows. 

“It’s not that easy.”

Link knows it’s not, but he’s trying to figure out how best to push this conversation towards a practice session. Making fun’s a good way to get Rhett mad, but that’s not what he’s aiming for. 

“S’pose it’s not,” Link says. He wouldn’t know, actually, seeing as how he hasn’t had the chance to do more than kiss. And most of that kissing was with Rhett, working out the awkward angles and everything so their real first times would be good. There’s still a part of him that believes that what they’ve done together doesn’t count, that because they’re both guys and because it’s just practice that they get a pass. 

“Like, do you just put your hands on her hips? Where do you go from there?”

“Up?” Link suggests a little stupidly, because the idea of going _down_ seems like too much for necking. 

Link isn’t expecting it, so when he’s on the receiving end of the back of Rhett’s hand he flinches hard, “Ow, man! What the heck was that for?”

“For bein’ dense. ‘Up,’” he mocks, voice lilting high in a poor mimicry of Link’s just because he knows how to push his buttons. “No duh, _up._ ” 

Now it’s his turn to be on the receiving end of a slap, and he shields his face with his arms to protect himself. “Ow! Quit it!”

“Stop mocking me! I don’t sound like that!”

“ _Stop mocking me, I don’t sound like that!”_ Rhett carries on mocking him, and earns himself another cuff of Link’s knuckles. He’s laughing behind the shield of his arms, twisting to turn away like he’s not the one bringing this on himself. 

“Hey man, at least I’m not the one who doesn’t know where he wants to touch on girls,” Link shoots back, but there’s no real venom behind the words. He lays back, settles down, satisfied with his retort as he watches Rhett try and recover from the insinuation behind it. 

“It’s not like I don’t _know_ … I dunno,” Rhett starts and stops, “I know what I wanna touch, I was just afraid of hurting her.”

There’s no secret between them that Rhett’s uncomfortable about his size. He’s not sure he’s done growing yet at eighteen, but dear God, he better be because he’s over six foot six already. He feels like there’s parts of him that haven’t caught up yet. Like his face didn’t get the memo, one his limbs and hands had gotten first and jumped right on the follow through. It’s not surprising that he’s always at least two heads taller than girls he’s interested in, and he’s near crippled with fear of being too rough just by virtue of his size. He compensates by being too soft, too gentle, by holding back entirely like he thinks the touch of his hand would crumble someone to dust.

“I don’t think you would, bo. You just gotta listen to her, y’know?”

Which is rich coming from Link, who’d actually bitten the first girl he’d kissed cause he got so excited he forgot everything they’d practiced. Rhett doesn’t even need to bring it up, just a pointed, sidelong glance is more than enough for Link to cringe and go pink at the memory. 

“Alright alright, I know! Yeah. Easier said than done, I get it,” Link concedes. After that, the two of them fall into silence for a couple minutes, but they’re both thinking about practicing and how they can ask for it without seeming like what they want is to practice.

“Maybe you don’t need to worry about where to put your hands.”

“What do you mean?” Rhett asks, face screwed up like he thinks that’s stupid. 

“Remember Bobby talking about floor kissing?” Link asks. 

“You seriously think there’s no hands in floor kissing?” Rhett asks, smiling almost like he’s winding up to take a dig at Link for how naive that comment makes him sound. 

“I don’t know, man! It was just an idea!” Link’s too defensive. It makes it clear that he didn’t know what floor kissing meant, what it entailed. Now he’s burning up, pinker than the sun would make him, and he clams right up, none too keen to put his foot in his mouth any more than he already has. 

Truth of the matter is Rhett doesn’t really, either, but he’s got a better idea of it. Bobby had given him more details than he had Link, and Rhett had let his mind wander with the tidbits he’d been given, filling in the blanks when he was alone in the dark in his bed, bringing up things he wants to try in his mind when he touched himself.

Rhett doesn’t mock him for the suggestion, instead he jumps into what he’s been trying to find an easy way into before he can talk himself back out of it. “I guess we could practice some?”

“Floor kissing?” Link hears himself ask, cheeks burning anew at Rhett’s daring to say out loud what he’s been trying to get the guts to.

“Well, maybe, but just like, touching and… kissing and stuff. Y’know.” Rhett’s heart was pounding against his ribcage so hard at his own daring he was afraid Link could hear it over the rush of the river. 

“Yeah, okay,” Link agrees, too fast, too eager. He pushes himself sitting up on the beach towel, folding his legs up under him as he runs nervous fingers through his hair. It’s a hopeless mess; they’ve been in and out of the river and laid out to dry in the sun, and his shaggy hair has dried flat in the back and is sticking up at awkward angles. 

Not that Rhett notices or cares in the slightest right now. He sits up and rubs one big sweaty palm over his buzzed short hair, unconsciously echoing Link’s move. He’s trying to figure out what makes sense to start, how they ought to sit. Last time, they weren’t doing anything near this ambitious and sitting side by side seemed to work just fine, but this is different. 

“Who’s gonna be Amber?” Link asks. It still feels weird to put a name to the game, but it was something they’d happened on the first time or two and it helps to kind of distance themselves from what it is that’s really going on here. And somehow, it’s less weird than asking which of them is gonna be the girl. 

“You wanna?” Rhett asks, hating the fact that his voice strangles high as he asks the question, and he’s just praying Link leaves him alone for it. 

“Yeah, sure,” Link says, too quickly again. 

“--just figure like, I’m the one who doesn’t know what to do. Not _doesn’t know_ but, you know, needs to practice--”

“No, yeah, I get it,” Link says, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, nervous and fidgety. He shifts so he’s not sitting cross legged, moves so he’s sitting on his feet, poised to crawl in closer when they figure out how to do this. 

“Then after maybe we switch?” Rhett suggests meekly, somehow shrinking right before Link’s eyes, all six foot six or seven of him withering with every word. Link’s never remembered him seeming so shy about this before. 

“Definitely,” Link says, sounding more sure than he feels, for Rhett’s sake. 

“You, uh…” Rhett glances down from Link’s face to his torso and nods, “...maybe put your shirt on. Kinda weird to start off, y’know, where we’re aiming to end up.”

Link’s head is buzzing with the thought that Rhett’s aim here is to get his shirt off. That he’s going to do it himself, big hands on his sun-tanned skin, slipping up under his clothes to peel his shirt off. He has a passing thought of making some bad joke about getting to second base, but suddenly he isn’t sure if topless and kissing is second base or third, so he just lunges for his t-shirt and pulls it on over his head. It ends up inside out (and backwards) but if they notice, neither of them care enough to comment on it. 

Link knows exactly what he wants, he just doesn’t know how to get it. He feels like he’s a half-step behind Rhett with things like this, like he’s got to follow Rhett’s lead. Even when Rhett’s Amber, Link hangs back, lets Rhett subtly initiate, guide their practice sessions, afraid he’s going to make a mistake, take things too far. He scoots a little closer to Rhett until one knee brushes Rhett’s long thigh. Rhett’s hand twitches like he wants to make a move, but doesn’t yet. 

Rhett’s not looking directly at him. It always starts like this, the both of them looking at each other askew, stealing glances like they haven’t been granted permission for this. 

Link wants Rhett’s hands on his body so bad he’s afraid of what it means, and if Rhett doesn’t do something, doesn’t get this started, then he’s afraid he’s going to do something he’ll regret later. 

“Can I kiss you?” Rhett asks it real soft, so quiet it could easily be missed. Link notes that he’s never tacked on _Amber_ , not now and not ever. They never say Amber beyond hashing out who’s who. After that it’s all nameless, the vaguest, thinnest veneer of plausible deniability. 

Link nods because he doesn’t trust himself with words to answer, but suddenly thinks maybe he better make it clear and say yes, but he doesn’t get any sound out before Rhett’s mouth is on his. They haven’t worked out how to arrange themselves, but that’s not the only reason it’s awkward. They’re both a little shell-shocked. It doesn’t matter that they’ve done this before, that this isn’t the first time they’ve practiced, it still manages to short circuit them every time. They start out like they’re afraid to touch each other, both of them leaning in to the kiss but trying for that to be their only point of contact. It’s not sustainable and it’s not where either of them want to be, and soon they’re brave enough to creep a little closer. 

It’s Link who starts to bridge the gap between them, inching forward on his knees. Finally, he doesn’t have a choice but to put a hand on Rhett’s shoulder for balance. It seems as though that move reminds Rhett what it is they’re doing, and he tries to pull back from the kiss so he can rearrange his limbs, but Link follows his mouth with a soft sound of loss. His face is hot with shame at the needy sound he’d made, how quickly he’d gotten so far into it that he’d started to forget himself, but Rhett doesn’t let him sit long in that feeling. 

Their faces bump together, all foreheads and noses, as Rhett unfurls his legs and stretches them out. Rhett catches Link’s sides without a second thought, guiding him to move so he doesn’t catch a knee, so he’s straddling his thighs easily. Why is it that when it’s Link, his hands just go without being told, but when it’s a girl he’s paralyzed with fear? He chalks it up to nerves, desire, to there actually being something on the line with a girl and whatever this is with Link not being something to get too worked up over. It’s not like they’re really doing anything here, not like there’s any weight to the moment. Except there absolutely is, and if he let himself think about it too long, he wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Which is exactly why he doesn’t. 

Link licks his lower lip and catches it in his teeth, trying to memorize the way Rhett’s mouth felt on his as he glances down between them, crawling in a little closer till his knees are in line with Rhett’s hips and when he settles down he’s sitting on those long, lean thighs. Link has no business looking up at him like that when he does, long hair wild around his pretty face, wet lips parted, too inviting. 

Rhett kisses him again, helpless to do anything else. His hands find Link’s hips, settle into the groove there, thumbs shy against the front of his body. He doesn’t need to feel to know he’s not wearing anything under his shorts, the both of them in just swim trunks and t-shirts, but they’re frozen in place like he’s afraid what he’ll find if he moves in any direction, or of what it would mean. 

Rhett manages to just barely pry their mouths apart, and he breathes, “Up?”

“Up,” Link nods, fingers gripping Rhett’s sloped shoulders through the thin cotton of his shirt in reassurance.

It’s hard to hold on to what it is they’re doing. Link’s supposed to be a girl, they’re supposed to be practicing, not doing this for real. Rhett’s hands forget and try to slip up under Link’s shirt, but he catches himself and instead traces the sides of Link’s body delicately, almost reverently. It doesn’t seem possible there’s that much gentleness in those big hands, and it doesn’t help that all Link wants in the whole world is to feel the strength of them, rough and broad and bowling him over. 

They’re kissing again when Rhett’s hands slip up under his arms, when his thumbs are skimming along the underside of his flat chest. If he really were a girl, they’d be tracing the bottom curve of his breasts, stealing their way up towards nipples. It’s the same move regardless, but _different_ , and Link can tell Rhett’s putting too much thought into what his hands are doing because the kiss is suffering. He’s desperate to fix it but doesn’t know how to. He’s considering catching his lip with his teeth but thinks better of it, remembers how poorly it had gone with the girl (and how she’d told everyone that Link bites) when Rhett’s thumbs flick over his nipples and whatever thought Link had been rolling over in his mind disappears all at once as a shiver slides right down his spine and pools low in his belly. 

Rhett must have felt it because he does it again, thumbs worrying Link’s small nipples through his shirt. Link’s mind is simultaneously blank and racing, riding the thought of _more, more, more_. He doesn’t even realize that he’s shaking under Rhett’s touch, trembling as his hands curl into fists in his t-shirt. Rhett gets bold then, hands sweeping inward over Link’s chest like there’s a handful there to pay attention to. He certainly treats him like there is, rubbing inward and upward with his heavy palms, fingers sweeping up towards his collarbone. 

Link’s growing increasingly desperate in the kiss, chasing Rhett’s mouth hungrily any time it feels like he might be pulling back. He’s not thinking about anything anymore, doesn’t care that they’re supposedly practicing, that it might be considered strange to be liking having his chest felt up the way he is. None of that matters cause Rhett’s touching him like he’s touching _him_ , not just using him as a stand in for the next girl to cross his path. 

Suddenly, somehow, the thought fires through his brain that Rhett wanted his shirt on so he could get it off, and he comes up for air and tries to peel his shirt off all at once. It’s artless and ever too eager, but when Rhett sees the direction he’s going, he moves into step, catching the hem of Link’s shirt and yanking it up and off as Link lifts his arms up over his head. 

Link grabs hold of the back of Rhett’s shirt and tugs, starts bunching it up a little at a time, trying to pull it off like he’s forgotten how to. They’re kissing again, colliding in a mess of teeth and tongue, going so fast they forget themselves again. Link’s clawing at Rhett’s back to find the hem of his shirt and tries to get it off without pulling away. With a deep breath, Rhett ducks away briefly to shimmy out of his twisted shirt and he’s barely got it off before Link’s got a hold of his wrist and puts his hand where he wants it, pressed against his chest. The other hand follows the first and he kneads his way up his chest with the heels of his hands, kissing his mouth again while fingertips slip past that prominent collarbone, thumbs settling over the hollow of his throat. If they were smarter or dumber, they might lean into it, might see what it feels like to hold on there, to curl a big hand around Link’s slender neck just for the experience of it. 

Instead, Rhett’s talking against Link’s mouth, voice breaking over the words, “We could try that floor kissing…”

That’s a terrible idea, but Link feels himself nod, hears himself stammer an emphatic _yes._ He’s so hard in his swim trunks and they’re not even pressed together, what makes him think laying down together is remotely a good idea? 

But good ideas have long been thrown out the window, or else they’d have never found themselves here. 

Link doesn’t know how it happens, just that it’s not long before he finds himself flat on his back in the sand with Rhett hovering over the length of his body. Their bare chests brush as Rhett leans down to kiss him, and Link is so touch starved from inexperience that the sensation of skin on skin is overwhelming, like his body is waking up when he hadn’t even known he’d been sleeping. 

In a hilarious turn of events, Link doesn’t know what to do with his hands. It’s not like he doesn’t know what he wants to touch, it’s just that he’s suddenly frozen in not knowing what would be okay. How far is too far? Of course, he knows how far is _too far_ , but that’s not something he can do with Rhett, is it? So where’s the line? Thankfully, he’s thrown back out of his racing thoughts when Rhett’s mouth finds his again. 

Link opens his mouth into the kiss, and for the first time it feels like they’re figuring it out. Like there’s less teeth and more tongue, but not in a bad way. Link hasn’t got the first idea what changed, just that suddenly it has. His hands start to figure it out too, because it’s easier when his brain starts to shut back off, his thoughts held in soft focus as desire takes the forefront. His hands skim up Rhett’s sides, heavy and needy, feeling the shape of his skinny frame under his palms, the way his muscles move beneath the skin. Rhett moves closer, low enough that their bellies brush, and in that moment right there Link shivers with the desperate anticipation of getting even closer. He needs to feel Rhett’s body fitted against his all the way down. 

Link manages to spread his legs, more or less. One of them is trapped between Rhett’s, but the other falls open easy and he’s praying that’s obvious enough, that Rhett catches the hint that he’s inviting more. He does, though it’s awkward at first as he just moves against him tangled as they are, both of them pressed to the other’s hips rather than lined up how Link craves. But it doesn’t matter because they’ve made contact. He can feel Rhett hard and thick against his body and Rhett can feel him jabbing up against his bony hip through their trunks, and as they carry on trying to figure out a way closer, there’s friction. It feels like a revelation and they’re not even lined up right, not close to in sync. It’s just the weight of their bodies and the slip of swim fabric over their desperate skin and the heat they generate as they move together.

The pretense is gone. They’re not Rhett and Amber practicing, figuring out where his hands should go. This is something more than that, but they both know it’s nothing they can acknowledge, after. Whatever this is, this is all they get of it, so they have to take it for all it’s worth. Up till now it feels like they’ve just been fumbling together in the dark and occasionally making contact, but this time is like someone lit a match. Link thinks to himself that this is how it feels to connect. That when this happens for real, with a girl, that this is the feeling he’s meant to be looking for, like lights switching on in the darkness. This dawning realization that this is what his body was meant for. 

Link hasn’t got the space left in his brain for rational thought, let alone to remember the comment he’d made earlier about how floor kissing, in his estimation, somehow took hands out of the equation but whether he realizes or not, he’s proven wrong as Rhett’s hand moves down between them and cups against him with a squeeze. There’s nothing about this that can be written off as _practice for with a girl_ , especially when Link’s cock jumps against Rhett’s hand and he responds by groping back in earnest. 

Link groans or Rhett does, it’s hard to tell but it doesn’t matter where the sound begins or where it ends as they pass it back and forth between them. Slowly they make adjustments that bring them more in sync until Rhett’s grinding against his own knuckles while Link rocks up against his heavy hand. It’s hard to imagine how they’ll come back from this, what mental somersaults it will take to stuff this experience down below the surface, to pretend this, like all the times before today that they’d kissed _for practice,_ hadn’t happened. It’s a small miracle that neither of them have the ability to hold that thought alongside this moment, to think about how they’re going to recover from this, the kind of whiplash it will be when it’s over.

If they could, it might be a heavier thing that it already is, aching through their chests the way the rest of their bodies ache. Maybe being able to divorce themselves from the emotion of this is the only thing that will carry them through it. At least for now. 

And neither of them are long for the end of it. Practically as soon as they manage to align, Link’s coming without so much as a hand curled around the bare skin of his cock, just the damp friction of Rhett’s hand and the weight of his body holding him down on his back in the sand. He’s not thinking about what to do with his hands then, but they find a place to hold, nails digging crescent moons into Rhett’s freckled shoulders. 

Their mouths part then and Link sucks down air like he’s surfacing from the water, and Rhett turns his hand between them, briefly considers rubbing himself off with Link still beneath him but thinks better of it. Instead, he takes back his hand, anchors himself up with it against the sand and finishes in a grind, moving against him, taking the last of whatever magic makes this okay for himself and he comes with his face buried against Link’s sweaty skin. 

They’ll do this again and again, as many times as they can get away with. Until they can’t, because it hurts too much. Because they can’t find the wall between their heads and their hearts anymore.

**Author's Note:**

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